


Hollow

by idrilhadhafang



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Evil Snoke, M/M, ambiguously dark poe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 14:12:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10992573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: When Poe meets Kylo Ren in the same prison block, a conversation between them may lead to the path that changes their futures forever.





	Hollow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zoe_Dameron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoe_Dameron/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I own nothing. 
> 
> Author's Notes: For the prompt, "Both are prisoners of Snoke; Poe because he's a valuable member of the Resistance, and Ren because he failed so poorly with Starkiller.
> 
> Max rating comfortable reading: M."

Poe Dameron can remember writing in his flight log that he didn’t want to talk about Kylo Ren again until the latter was rotting in a prison cell. He just didn’t expect to see Ren in a prison cell, and Ben behind the helmet at that. There is still a scar gleaming on his face where Rey had slashed him, and he looks thinner and sadder, but it is Ben.

Poe feels as if a Gamorrean has kicked him in the chest. It’s Ben. All this time, the man who killed Lor San Tekka for trying to help him, the man who ordered the slaughter of a whole village while Poe pleaded with him to stop, the man who tortured him...it was Ben. Ben Solo, the man who never would have done any of this -- except he has, dear stars, he has.

They chain him up tighter this time around. They’ve obviously been unsettled by his escape the first time around. No risks this time. Even with his wrists cuffed, Poe wonders if there’s any way that he’s going to get out of this one. Finn’s not around to save him this time.

And Ben...

Ben’s in the same block as him.

Ben. Poe can still remember what he was like growing up with him. Ben, who wouldn’t have hurt a gizka, Ben, kind and funny and clever and brave. Ben, who could, as they got older, touch him so gently and kiss him so tenderly as if he were made of transparisteel. Ben can’t be Kylo Ren. It’s wrong. It’s all wrong.

And what is Kylo Ren doing in a prison cell block anyway?

***  
Kylo Ren hadn’t expected to see Poe Dameron again, not in those circumstances at least. In fact, of all the circumstances he expected to see Poe Dameron again, it was on the battlefield, whether it was on the battlefield in space or the battlefield on the ground. Anywhere, actually. Just not in the same cell block.

He supposes there’s some level of irony in this that he hasn’t appreciated yet.

He expects Poe Dameron to have a look of hatred on his face, but instead, he looks as if he’s been hit by a runaway speeder. He stares at Kylo Ren as if he can’t believe what he’s seeing. And one name reverberates in Kylo Ren’s head, a name that made him all but freeze when his father had first shouted it across the bridge at Starkiller Base.

Ben.

It seems that name won’t leave him be no matter how much he tries. It seems that like Han Solo, this name will never truly leave him.

Killing Han Solo should have calmed the conflict inside him, killed the pain. Kylo Ren had followed every one of the Supreme Leader’s tests to the letter, tests of loyalty, of the Light that still remained inside him, and he expected this test to put his conflict to rest once and for all.

It did the exact opposite.

And it wasn’t his defeat at the hands of the scavenger that he’s angriest at himself about. Indeed, in a way, he can’t help but admire her. It’s the fact that he nearly betrayed the Supreme Leader. All because of the conflict within him. All because he was nearly swayed by words that Han Solo could have been simply saying, that Han Solo could have been using to manipulate him, because he was all but starved of words like these.

We miss you.

For those words, he would have nearly betrayed the Supreme Leader.

He can still hear the Supreme Leader’s voice in his mind, a roar, a sort of volume that he rarely had heard the Supreme Leader use. “Do you realize what you could have done?”

And, “How dare you nearly betray me?”

Kylo Ren’s own voice, before he had been knocked unconscious. “Supreme Leader, forgive me...”

And here he is, in the same cell block as Poe Dameron, wondering who makes the first move, if at all.

As Poe Dameron would say, who talks first?

***  
Poe can’t find his voice at first. Then he says, “Ben, what did he do to you?”

Ben is quiet. “That’s none of your business.”

“No, really -- what in the name of the stars happened to you on Ziost? What did Snoke do to you?”

Silence. Then, “He told me the truth.”

“Truth?” Poe says. “You’re kidding me, right? How can any of what the First Order tells you be the -- ’’ He cuts himself off right there. The First Order is just good at that sort of stuff, they really are. They could teach you wrong is right and up is down if they wanted to. Finn’s told him enough; the only reason that Finn defected was realizing the villagers were innocents and not beings who had declared war on the First Order as Phasma had apparently told him.

Snoke could have told Ben anything, and Ben would have been lured in at first before fully succumbing. Ben always had a strong sense of wanting to help others. Could Snoke have exploited that?

Even that realization is enough to give him the chills.

Ben looks at him too coldly. “What is it you want, Dameron?” Dameron. As if they’re good as strangers. “Come to gloat?”

“Yeah, sure,” Poe says sarcastically. “The stormtroopers dragged me over here just so I could gloat.” He sighs. “I didn’t even know it was you under that mask. You. Of all beings.”

He doubts he can gloat anyways. He has too many questions. Seeing Kylo Ren in a prison cell should be satisfying. It’s the opposite of that.

“What happened on Ziost, Ben?” Poe says. “What went wrong?”

***  
What Poe says next is a question that Kylo Ren hasn’t heard in years. It’s a question that he’s made sure will never be asked. That’s one of many reasons that Snoke forbid the name Ben Solo from ever being spoken -- no one can afford to know that Ben Solo is alive. Easier to believe that Ben

that weak, inadequate, mediocre boy

was dead.

And for Kylo Ren, it’s easier too. At least until Poe Dameron asks that question: what happened on Ziost, Ben? What went wrong?

“He resisted at first.” Kylo can still remember a boy, a weaker, more foolish, more inadequate boy, glaring at Snoke from behind the door of the room where he was being held captive. How about I’d rather die than join you?

And Snoke, speaking in that still amiable tone. Almost fatherly, in a way. You’ll see things differently in time.

And he had. Ben Solo had been too much of a coward to acknowledge his anger and pain and hate, and more than that, use them. He had been held back from his true potential, and he had let the others do it no less. He had been weak and disgusting and cowardly, and he destroyed that wretched boy because he deserved to be destroyed.

“He refused to believe that he no longer had any use,” Kylo Ren says. “So I destroyed him.” Beat. “A service to the galaxy, actually.”

And that...if there is any truth that shines above all others, it is this.

***  
Just the next few words or so are too much like a punch to the gut. How can Ben even say that? How can he even think of saying something like that? It’s not right, it’s not fair, it’s not true, it’s the farthest thing from truth. “Why?”

“Because he was weak,” Ren says. He’s too calm, too logical, almost as if he’s trying to sway Poe to his side. Poe doesn’t like it. Ben is many things, but logical is not one of them. The man he loved was like a storm -- tempestuous, unpredictable, glorious in a way. He was unlike a storm in the ways that he held Poe so gently and kissed him so tenderly, almost as if Poe were transparisteel.

“He wasn’t.”

“How well did you know him?”

Poe sighs. “Ben, we knew each other since we were kids, remember?”

“I do.”

“I knew you. And I loved you.”

Silence. Ren actually seems taken aback by this. He looks away quickly, but Poe doesn’t miss the tears that glisten in his eyes.

“Ben,” Poe begins.

“You mean every word.” And there’s something in Ren’s voice that almost seems like shock.

“Of course I do.”

“I...”

“And I still love you.”

And Poe supposes he’s known it all along.

***  
The Supreme Leader’s told him many things. One of those things being that the Resistance are incapable of love. They are capable of faking it for their own purposes, but they are far from capable of true emotion. And Kylo Ren was willing to believe it at first.

It was before the bridge. Before many other events that led him questioning his loyalty to the Supreme Leader. It was before Poe Dameron confessed that even after all this time, he still loved him.

Does he still love Poe Dameron?

Is there room for a future with Poe Dameron? Does he love Poe?

Kylo Ren is startled to find that the answer is yes. The question is what they do next.

“Do you think that alone can save me?” he says.

Poe is quiet. Then, “I think you’re still worth saving. Even after all this time.”

“You know I can’t go home again,” Kylo says.

“Why not? The General -- ’’

“Misses me. So I’ve been told.” In a way, it was what Kylo Ren had been wanting to hear all along. “But going home isn’t an option. I have done too much wrong to do that.”

Poe’s eyes grow wide and soft. It’s clear he wasn’t expecting that. Then, “Maybe you haven’t. What if you haven’t? I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’ve done a lot of things, but...the General’s more than willing to accept anyone who’s turned their backs on the First Order.”

“Is she?” That...that Kylo Ren was not expecting. “Tell me, Poe, if there was a third option, in between the First Order and the Resistance, would you take it?”

Poe leans in. “What do you mean?”

***  
It’s taken some time to get out, but with the help of a tool that the First Order hasn’t managed to confiscate when they captured him -- one lone security spike -- Poe breaks them both out, and they’re ready to challenge the Supreme Leader himself. No small feat, but Poe Dameron’s taken on big feats before.

They head towards the throne room, and Poe won’t deny that he’s looking forward to making Snoke pay for what he did. He took Ben, someone who Poe held dear, and twisted him, broke him. Snoke is good as responsible for every death as much as Kylo Ren, Hux or Phasma, or anyone, for that matter. And Poe knows what to do. For Ben, for everyone whose lives Snoke tore apart.

Poe fingers the grenade that they picked up off one of the guards they killed. He can just picture it. Don’t move, Snoke. One toss of this thing and you’re blown sky high as you deserve. After all he’s done, he deserves it. Poe doesn’t know what he’s going to do next, but he’s going to do what he can to bring down Snoke.

Everyone and everything Snoke’s hurt...he owes them that much.

Poe takes a deep breath and, slowly, opens the door to the Supreme Leader’s throne room -- and their uncertain future.

 

 

 


End file.
